Laura Bodewig
Laura Bodewig (ラウラ ボーデヴィッヒ, Raura Bōdevihhi) is a 1st-year transfer student at the IS Academy in Class One and the IS Representative Candidate of Germany. She was the first antagonist of the light novel and anime, and later becomes an ally of Ichika Orimura. Laura is the 5th heroine to be introduced to the Infinite Stratos series. Appearance Laura has long silver hair, a red right eye, and a black eye patch over her yellow/golden left eye. This was the result of a failed nanomachine experiment that was meant to help her become a better IS pilot. Laura is both the shortest and most petite of the heroines. Her IS Academy uniform is a modified version of the standard uniform. For her IS Practice and battles, she wears a gray version of the training uniform. At night, she now wears black cat pajamas that Charlotte Dunois got her. Ichika has remarked that Laura has a doll-like cuteness around her and Ichika said that her eyes look like gemstones. 'Personality' She is initially seen as a tough person who absolutely despised Ichika for (indirectly) making his sister, Chifuyu Orimura, forfeit the match Laura believed Chifuyu should have rightfully won. She has a major superiority complex surrounding her identity as a super soldier, as she often remarks that surrounding people's abilities are second-rate. She insulted Cecilia Alcott and Lingyin Huang during their first fight, saying that she has a hard time believing people like them possess 3rd Generation IS's. She comments that they come from countries that boasts of numbers, but no talent (Lingyin), or whose only redeeming quality is their ancient culture (Cecilia). Despite that complex of hers, she idolizes Chifuyu to the point of worship. When she is first introduced, she often seen trying to persuade Chifuyu to leave the IS Academy and return to Germany, as she believed her skills are being sullied by the students and staff who don't appreciate her and that she should be the only one who can train under her. Having been raised in the army, she does not understand the workings of a normal life, such as when she calls Ichika her "husband" and when she comments that two hours of seiza is nothing compared to torture (Ichika wondered what counts as torture). Similarly to Houki, Laura is rather shy when it comes to her looks despite her pride. While never having been interested in her looks or clothes before, she started thinking about them more in order to get Ichika's attention. When she does, she becomes very happy and unfocused on everything else except what Ichika has said to her. Strangely, she doesn't mind being naked in front of him. Laura is quite honest and straightforward with her thoughts and intentions; she will usually come out and say what she is trying to do instead of hiding it. A good example would be when she kissed Ichika right in front of the entire Class One right after falling in love with him. This self-confidante is usually envied by the other girls, as they were too embarrassed to admit their feelings or reason while she wasn't. However, she still can be shy sometimes when trying something new like wearing a swimsuit or a dress. 'Infinite Stratos & Abilities' Having been designed and raised as a test-tube baby for the army, Laura possesses heightened reflexes and great deal of military tactics to deal with more experienced soldiers who are older than her, even before her introduction and gaining an IS of her own. She is very skilled in unarmed and armed combat. Her specialty is with combat knives and is good enough to fight against Houki's swordsmanship on equal ground. Cecilia ranks Laura as the best of the main cast. She demonstrates this by easily defeating both Cecilia and Lingyin, both being A-Rank representatives. She was also trained by Chifuyu Orimura, an accomplished pilot of her own right, which gives a testament of her skills. *'Odin's Eye' - Also called the Eyes that Surpasses the World, it is a hyper-sensor package that heightens the nerve processing to the brain at an explosive speed. It allows reaction quickly in high-speed combat. 'History' Laura possesses the darkest past of all 5 heroines, since she was a test-tube baby originally created to become a weapon. She was a part of Germany's super-soldier project, which aimed to create a perfect combatant. As such, she was educated with only what was needed to make her an excellent soldier; all the while being ignorant of things she would have learned as a normal child. She was educated with just enough social skills to be able to function as a soldier, which was clearly nowhere near enough to become a normal girl. She excelled at all military training she received and maintained the top rank until the introduction of IS. With IS thrown into the equation, the project faced a heavy obstacle, since their subjects (mainly Laura) were tuned for conventional warfare and the factor of IS was never calculated. They decide to re-tune Laura by replacing her left eye with an artificial one, a miniature (and heavily downgraded in order to fit into human body) version of the Hyper-sensor package. With it, she was supposed to have a boost in her sensory system, even when not enhanced by the IS. Coupled with the IS, this was to function as an additional conduit to enhance her response in IS piloting, resulting in a huge efficiency boost in IS operation. The experiment, however, ended in a partial failure as the new eye that was installed malfunctioned and couldn’t be turned off when needed and, as a result, Laura's performance not only as a IS pilot, but as a soldier began to deteriorate. Being raised with the sole purpose of being an excellent soldier, she was devastated when she couldn't keep up with other IS pilots, who began to treat Laura as a defect and not as a comrade. This was when Laura first met Chifuyu, who agreed to become a temporary IS instructor in the German military in return for their help in finding the location of the kidnapped Ichika during the 2nd Mondo Grosso tournament. To Laura, Chifuyu appeared to be the ultimate goal that she should pursue, and with Chifuyu's help, Laura was able to recover and retake the top rank in her unit. From that point on, Laura developed a fanatical admiration toward Chifuyu, to the point of almost being worship. However, once when she asked her how to become strong, Chifuyu answered that she has a brother and revealed a soft and tender expression. Laura, who had been raised to believe in strength and toughness and that softness is for the weak could not condone Chifuyu showing such an expression towards anyone and resolved to defeat Ichika, whom she viewed as the reason for Chifuyu's "weakness". 'Plot Synopsis' 'Episode 5: "Episode 5"' Laura was introduced to the series as a transfer student from Germany. After introducing her name, Laura immediately walks up to Ichika and slaps him, declaring she will not recognize him as Chifuyu's brother. [[Episode 6|'Episode 6: "My Roommate is a Young, Blonde Nobleman"']] [[Episode 7|'Episode 7: "Blue Days ~ Red Switch"']] 'Episode 8: "Find Out My Mind"' The fight has started and Ichika immediately goes out to strike first at Laura, but is stopped by her AIC. As Laura prepares to shoot Ichika while he's paralyzed, Charles appears behind Ichika and counter-attacks Laura with his Rapid Switch, but Houki interferes, stating that she won't have them forget about her. Laura feels that Houki is in her way, so she uses her tentacles to remove her out of her business against the boys. While Ichika and Laura fight, Charles defeats Houki first and resumes his battle against Laura. During the fight, they discover the AIC's weakness: Laura can only focus on stopping one enemy per time. They then use different "sacrifice-and-attack" combos to slowly defeat her. Ichika gets his energy shield exhausted and Laura takes advantage to pin him down to the ground, but Charles keeps protecting him with his Ignition Boost, stating that it's the first time he's using it. Charles then uses his Shield Pierce weapon to brutally punch Laura's shield multiple time and exhaust her armor. Laura, fainting, is suddenly consumed by her IS and transforms into a large dark mech that matches Chifuyu's fighting style. Angry about this, Ichika decides to fight against it, but Houki holds him back, telling him that he doesn't have to do anything and the matter will be resolved by the instructors troop. Ichika still refuses and Charles offers him enough energy to manifest his sword, making him promise that if he loses, he'll have to wear a female uniform to school starting the next day, embarrassing Ichika and Houki. After Ichika gets enough energy, he goes to cut through the mech and save Laura. In the subspace (Laura's unconsciousness), Laura asks Ichika why is he strong, and why has he chosen to be strong. Ichika responds by saying he wants to protect people important to him and that he'll protect Laura. She wakes up and finds herself on a bed in the hospital with Chifuyu besides her. The teacher starts explaining about the VT System (Valkyrie Trace System), a system banned under the IS Treaty and that it was equipped on Laura's IS. Chifuyu then asks who Laura Bodewig was, and that if she's nobody in particular, then it's fine, but she will have to become the Laura Bodewig from now on. Chifuyu leaves and says that Laura cannot become her, making the girl laugh happily by herself. The next day, Charles introduces herself to the class under the name of "Charlotte" Dunois, shocking the whole class. As everyone knew Ichika and Charlotte used the Boys' Bath the night before, Lingyin charges into the class with her IS to jealously attack Ichika, probably jealous that he bathed with another girl instead of her, but is stopped by Laura's AIC. Ichika thanks her, but is suddenly pulled over by Laura as she kisses him in front of the whole class, shocking Cecilia, Lingyin, Houki, and all of the girls. Laura states that she will be Ichika's 'wife'(a mistake on her part due to not understanding Japanese/social customs), and that it is final and that she won't hear any objections. Ichika and the girls are once again shocked. 'Episode 9: "Ocean's Eleven!"' Ichika wakes up and feels another pair of legs. Shocked, he pulls off the blanket and discovers Laura sleeping naked. As Ichika screams, Laura wakes up and exposes the rest of her body, prompting Ichika to tell her to hide "those". Laura says that spouses shouldn't hide anything from each other and she thought in Japan you'd call someone you like as "My wife" (ore no yome) or "My wife" (jibun wo). Realizing that Laura misunderstands Japanese culture, he points at her and asks who's the idiot feeding her false information, prompting Laura to grab his arm and pin him down. She then changes topic saying that she should train Ichika in pinning techniques and that it's not like she won't help him. Ichika, struggling, asks why Laura's blushing. Meanwhile, Houki knocks at the door telling Ichika it's time for morning practice and that just because it's Sunday does not mean that he can slack off. As she walks in and sees Ichika and the naked Laura on the bed, she freezes in a shocked/speechless manner, dropping her shinai. Seeing Houki, Laura comments how rude she is for invading the bedroom of a married couple. Pissed and shocked, Houki takes her shinai and punishes Ichika. Cecilia and Lingyin, along with Laura, stalk Ichika and Charlotte through the shopping mall to learn about their relationship. While looking for Ichika and Charlotte, who disappear into a swimsuit boutique, they spot Chifuyu and Maya giving them a moral lesson in the middle of the boutique about drawing a line even as classmates. Meanwhile, Laura calls her Lieutenant Clarissa, an avid fan of Japanese shojo manga, for swimsuits suggestions. At the beach, Maya tells everybody to enjoy themselves and to return to the inn in time for dinner. Charlotte gets to Ichika and presents a girl with an eye patch wrapped in a towel, to which Ichika freaks out and calls her the Bath Towel Monster. Ichika discovers it's Laura by her voice. After Charlotte purposely teases her that she'll have fun with Ichika without her if she doesn't show her swimsuit, Laura removes the towel and exposes her black swimsuit, telling that they can laugh if they want. They then tell her that there's nothing funny about it and Ichika says that she's cute, making Laura blush, saying that it's the first time anyone had said that to her. Honne and her friends then ask Ichika to keep his long-awaited promise: beach volleyball. As they play, Laura gets so obsessed by the fact that Ichika calls her cute that she gets hit in the face by the ball. As Ichika gets close to ask if she's alright, Laura blushes even more and runs away. She then had fun with the others for the rest of the day, occasionally blushing when Charlotte presents Laura's swimsuit to the other girls. [[Episode 10|'Episode 10: "Thin Red Line"']] [[Episode 11|'Episode 11: "Get Ready"']] [[Episode 12|'Episode 12: " Episode 12"']] 'OVA: "A Sextet Yearning for Love"' 'Quotes' *''"I will not accept that you are her brother. I shall never accept it!"'' - Laura to Ichika after slapping him at their first encounter (Episode 5) (sub) *''Laura: "Y...You’ll be my Husband! This is final. I won't hear any objections!"'' - Laura to Ichika after kissing him (Episode 8) (sub) *''"I do not approve. In fact, I will never approve that you're her brother!"'' - Laura to Ichika after slapping him at their first encounter (Episode 5]]) (Dub) *''Laura: "Now, I have decided that I am going to make you my bride! That is final and I will not accept any objections from you!"'' - Laura to Ichika after kissing him (Episode 8) (Dub) Trivia * In Volume 4, Laura states that she has 20 million Euros in her account. This amount is a result of having been in the military since she was born, being an IS representative candidate and having never withdrawn any of it. Navigation Category:IS Academy Students Category:IS Cadet Representative Category:IS User Category:Main Characters Category:Characters Category:Females